


Innocent Monsters

by thecat_13145



Series: Monsters [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 06:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecat_13145/pseuds/thecat_13145
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Memorial Day dawned bright and cold<br/>Or truth will out</p>
<p>This is part of My Monsters series, where Steve Rogers was born in Berlin and will make no sense unless you've read the others in the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Innocent Monsters

Memorial Day dawned bright but cold.

Usually Logan avoided anything to do with this day like the plague, once having volunteered for a six hour stake out in Madipoor, just to avoid being around on that day.

But this year Erik had being in contact with him. With the new rules meaning that for the first time mutants could openly serve in the military on the same terms as their human counterparts, a decision had being made for a mutant to lay a wreath, commemorating the mutants who had given their lives for their country.

Erik hadn’t actually said anything definite, but nearly 20 years with Xavier had taught the kid how to make you want to do something because they did.

Which was why he was standing here now, flanked by Natasha and Clint, pulling on the formal black uniform of SHIELD.

“Man, I didn’t think anyone had a fruit salad larger than Fury’s” Natasha shot Clint a look, but as her fingers smoothed at imaginary creases, they kept being drawn to the medals across his chest. He couldn’t blame her. She’d never seen the whole lot at once, no one had. Before today, he’d have never even considered wearing them all together.

Her fingers paused over the first two. She looked at him, suddenly uncertain.  
SHIELD basic rules (you never ask about someone’s past) mean that she can’t be comfortable asking him directly (as if Natasha is ever happy about asking anything directly), but in her own way, she’s as curious as Clint, who is openly staring at them.

“Is that...?”

He’s tempted not to reply, but that would be childish.

Plus, he knows Erik’s kids are going to be bugging him about it all day, so he’d better get used to it.

“Yeah,” he said, fingering the first medal. “That’s a Victoria Cross. Won it in the Great War.”

He could still remember the wording used, that Private James Logan, along with his brother, Victor Logan, had, whilst under aerial bombardment and heavy fire, taken command of the unit when their captain was killed. That he, along with his brother, Victor had taken the trench single handed and with just one gun between them. Victor’s had said the same, except included the words “In spite of being wounded.” This was despite the fact the doctors had never found the bullet that hit Victor.

“Civil War,” he said, softly, pointing to one with Lincoln’s head. “Creed found that the army was looking for men. We were both big enough to lie about our ages and it wasn’t like anyone bothered to check.” He snorted, smiling to himself. “Don’t think either actually knew or cared what they were fighting about. All that mattered was we were promised three square meals and a dollar a day. Used kids to make up numbers.” His fingers moved to the next one. “1914-1915 star. Canadian this time, we cross the border almost as soon as the war was over.” He shrugged. “Joined up again when they were looking for soldiers for much the same reason, except it was a shilling a day.” They’d being working at a mine in British Columbia when the recruiter came looking. Victor had got into an argument with the cook and...Well Victor had never really seen the point of hiding his claws. They’d skipped town and joined up at the next recruiting office they came to, figuring that even if someone found them, the army wouldn’t really be keen to get rid of them. “British War Medal, Victory Medal.”

The next row was more impressive, Stars for service, for Burma, for Africa, Italy and France and Germany.

Below them, the Canadian Volunteer service medal, with bars for Dieppe and Hong Kong, the war medal and the defence medal nesting side by side. Then Korea, no voluntary service medal this time, they just stuck with it, just the Korea Medal and the UN medal. The last medal he’d earned before Stryker. 

He knew that some of the survivors, North and Dukes, were planning to leave a gap there. A demand for acknowledgement of what Stryker had done, if not with the permission of the US army, then at least initially with their approval, but Logan didn’t really see the point of that. It had happened, and he carried a far more powerful reminder than any medal or commemoration of his time with that mad man.

Finally, it’s the medals from SHIELD, which he both didn’t want to talk about and required no explanation. Natasha and Clint could easily recognise the recognition of his valour, heck they’d being involved with a few of them.

The SHIELD medals were also the only ones that Logan could be 100 per cent certain were his. They were the same ones that had being present to him. The others were less certain.

Stryker and Thornton had had copious notes on all the test subjects, but personal things were irrelevant. Thornton had actually admitted that at his trial. 

Fury had put together the medals 

Natasha was apparently finally satisfied with his appearance, as she flicked one more imaginary speck of dust, before grabbing her own jacket.

Sharon was waiting them in the kitchen, her blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail, drinking coffee. She pointedly ignored Natasha, but whistled at Logan.

“You scrub up good old man.”

“Less of the old,” Logan grunted, though he wasn’t really listening. Instead, he smelt Iron Man, who as best as Logan could tell was hiding in the pantry. 

Internally, he shook his head. Sharon did look scarily like a blonde version of her great aunt. If, as he was becoming more sure every day, Iron Man was Übermensch, then being confronted with the Aryan Ideal, would have made him uncomfortable.

Fury could be as much of a bastard as Stryker at points, but at least he was slightly more subtle. This was simply a reminder that time was running out.

He sighed to himself. He’d deal with it after he got through today.

Raising his voice, he called out. “You guys coming?”

/*/*/*/**//*/**/*/*/**//*/*/*

Here’s what the Awber archives had on Margarete Kärrner.

She had being born in 1918, the year the Great War ended in Hamburg. She had two brothers, Andreas and Christopher. Her father came from a local family, who could trace their ancestry back to the Goths (or certainly could by the time the Nazi’s came to power). He was a doctor. Her mother had being a governess before her marriage.

Margarete did well at school, scored top marks in the League of German Maidens. Her appearance was possibly less obviously Aryan than might be expected, but with her brown hair and eyes she does reflect the Fuher.

They considered the evidence and deemed her safe to become involved with Captain America.

Here’s what MI5 had on Citizen V.

The second holder of that title, she was a radio operator with the resistance, recruited by the first Citizen V, who was her lover. Originally she was simply one of a number of operatives with in Germany, transmitting information of minimal importance.

In 1942, however this changes. Suddenly Citizen V is transmitting conversations from the highest levels of government. MI5 demands a meeting, which is arranged in Neutral Spain. 

There, Citizen V is interviewed by “Tin Eye” Stephens and Tar Robson over the course of three hours.

The source of this increase in information is identified by Citizen V as Hauptsturmführer Deutschland, who she admits to sleeping with. However, she refuses to divulge any information on Hauptsturmführer Deutschland’s identity or movements, leading to Stephens Declaring her to be “The only agent I have ever interviewed who I cannot be sure which side she is playing for. What’s more I don’t believe she knows either.”

In 1945 Citizen V leaves Berlin, only a few days before the advancing Red Army, and makes her way to Allied territory and vanishes from history.

Her files are sealed until 2150. Few people know of her existence. Few still know her true identity.

/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/**/

Some villains, Logan thought, had no timing.

Loki was one. The guy always seemed to pick times and places where he knew the Avengers would be. Then again, with Loki’s obsession with his brother, perhaps that wasn’t so much timing as a slightly nuts plan.

This guy, however, Baron Zemo as he called himself, despite the Zemo estates being confiscated by the war crimes tribunal in his grandfather’s absence, was plain old nuts.

Logan would like to blame it on the guy being a Nazi, but he strongly suspected that the Fuher himself might have ruled this plan as nuts. Scratch that, he would have done.

Attacking the New York Cenotaph, during the memorial celebrations, even in a suit of armour, as a Nazi…pretty much a way to get your butt kicked.

Most of Zemo’s goons seemed to have realised this, turning pale when they realised that they were facing the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X Men (and teams), plus the combined forces of Army, Navy, Air Force and SHIELD, all of whom were serious pissed off.

Zemo himself, seated on top of a suit of armour that looked like it had jumped out of a Bad Buck Roger’s comic, was laughing, declaring his supremacy over all mankind.

He didn’t seem to notice the suit was starting vibrate, though that might have being because just as Eric raised his arms to bring things up a notch, Iron Man attacked, flying full tilt into his face.

/*//*/**//*/*/**//**/*//*/**/*/*//*/*

_1940_

_She hates working here, but the opportunity for information for the British is too good to miss._

_She detests these men, these good Nazi wolves in sheep, repeating the same tired phrases, using politics to justify their own base instincts._

_She despises Erskine as a coward, and worse than that a traitor. To her, to Hans, to every Jew, every communist, every homosexual, every intelligential, priest and woman who dared to stand up to these brutes. Erskine had traded his wife and son in a gilded cage for his soul. Hans kept writing, kept publishing even when those monsters beat down his door._

_He never abandoned his beliefs and so she can’t abandon them either. That’s why she’s here, that’s why she’s made contact with the British. That’s why Richard is in the audience there. After all, who would suspect the sergeant who follows the Ice Maiden around like a kicked dog of having any motive other than her here?_

_They both know the risks. Richard kissed her last night and she wanted to do more, but more is for celebrating. For tonight._

_She spares a glance for the Test Subject sitting on the table, crunching on an apple and reading Mein Kamf for about the hundredth time._

_She feels sorry for him, for Stefan. He’s not like the others. Sometimes she thinks that’s the real reason they have all rejected him. The Army, the SS, this boy…she shakes herself._

_That boy is a Nazi. That boy is going to die before today is out or she and Richard will die with him._

_That’s all there is to it._

_Later, when she finds she can’t pull the trigger, she tells herself that it’s simply Stefan will be of more use alive and in love with her than dead._

/**//*/*/*/*/*/*/**//**/

Even Erik stood still, frozen by the intensity of this attack.

Logan knows hatred. He knows anger. He seen men destroy an enemy completely; heck he’s done it himself a couple of times.

This is different. This (and he hates as a mutant to use the word) is inhuman.

The Forces are standing stone still, their eyes barely on the prisoners (most kids and moderately insane adults, irritating but as Erik would say hardly worth calling Nazis). SHIELD agent’s hands are on their Tasers, not certain if they should fire.

And Iron Man was still on top on Zemo. 

For once, Logan was fairly certain Fury would be grateful for the distorter that made interviews and quotes from Iron Man difficult at the best of times. Today it was borderline impossible even for Logan to understand the strange mixture of German and English that was pouring from his lips.

Traitor to the scared Germany

Corruptors of the fatherland.

Murderers.

Monsters.

Tasha and Clint were both looking at him, and if someone didn’t interfere, there was going to be footage of Iron Man beating Zemo to death on the Ten o’clock news.  
He moved forward.

“Alright, that’s enough.” He said, reaching out “He ain’t going anywhere.”

Iron Man didn’t even seem to register the hand on his arm.

Filth.

Traitor.

“That’s Enough!” Even Logan felt things were going too far He could see Zemo’s bloody face poking out though that ridiculous balaclava, and Christ, this one was just a kid, too young to have fought in the War. Hell too young to have being alive there.

He grabbed Iron Man’s fist as it came down again towards Zemo’s head and blurted out.

“"Ich sagte Weggetreten Hauptsturmführer”

It was like a bomb had gone off.

Iron Man froze, one hand still raised towards Baron Zemo. His right gauntlet was fractured. 

Eyes, Logan knew from the old posters, were a pure blue gazed at him through slits in the helmet.

Logan didn’t look away.

_Yes, I know who you were._

There was a metallic clunk as Zemo dropped like rag doll onto the ground, his blood running forward to stain the poppies.  
Iron man climbed to his feet, his eyes never leaving Logan’s, his arms hanging loosely by his side.

There was a sudden explosion and Logan froze himself, ready to duck, wondering Zemo’s suit had some form of self-destruct mechanism built in. Then he realised it was the repulsors in Iron Man’s suit, activating, taking the other man up, up and away from the crowd.

Logan watched, telling himself he just imagined the panic in the body language of Iron Man, or that it was related to the knowledge that he had being found out, not that Hauptsturmführer Deutschland had being about to surrender, that Iron Man had being about to unmask.

“Logan.” Erik’s accent was stronger than it had being in years. He was standing, staring at Logan like he’d grown a second head, and actually Erik might have handled that better.

Erik wasn’t stupid, he could put the pieces together and he could understand the curses.

“Vhat_”

Logan interrupted. “Don’t ask.”

He stalked off, as the paramedics finally made their way towards the fallen super villain.

**Author's Note:**

> The scene Logan remembers for winning the Victoria Cross (UK highest military award) is based on the WW1 in X Men Origins: Wolverine Movie.
> 
> The German Logan says is "I said Stand Down Captain" or at least according to Google translate


End file.
